Newborn twins fight rare disease, family says it’ll cost $4.2 million to save their lives
www.wbtv.com
New parents in Kansas City are fighting to save the lives of their newborn twins. They said the boys have a rare genetic disease that will cost the family millions of dollars to treat.

america is so fucking based man

in any proper country that company at least gets forced to pay by the government then ordered to shut down forever due to wanton cruelty. all the employees get generous severance except whoever made that call. depending upon your view of carceral punishment there are a few ways to go with that guy.

  • fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de
    1·
    28 days ago

    You’ve missed my point.

    The percentage of total expenditure spent on R&D is not in any way indicative of the cost of R&D compared to the sale price of a given medication.

    Quite simply, maybe the majority of a company’s turnover is manufacturing licensed or generic meds. No R&D required.

    Does the remaining 21% equate to $2m or $2b, and how many new medications did they create with that expenditure?

    • JoBo@feddit.uk
      1·
      28 days ago

      That’s a mind-numbingly obvious point which completely ignores the context, which is Pharma justifying their high prices based on the amount they spend on R&D.

      The rest of the world gets drugs 2-3x cheaper than the US. Do you imagine they’re selling at a loss to everywhere else?

      • fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de
        1·
        28 days ago

        a mind-numbingly obvious point

        Yet completely lost on you ?

        If a company spends $2b on research each year and after 5 years brings a new medication to market which is only useful for 1 person in every billion, how much should that company sell that medication for and how is it relevant that the company “only” spent 21% of it’s revenue on research? That company could still say that the medication is costly due to research costs and the claim would be true.

        I’m not saying pharma companies aren’t shady as fuck, I’m just saying that complaining about the percentage of their revenue spent on research is absurd.

        The rest of the world gets cheaper medications because the medical system in the US is just a mess.

        That said, some medications are still preclusively expensive outside the US “due to research”.

        • JoBo@feddit.uk
          1·
          27 days ago

          Good grief. You don’t need to wave your hands so wildly, this is really fucking simple maths. Expenditure which is 21% of the total cannot possibly be the reason why USians pay 2-3 times more than everywhere else for drugs.